WHY are you doing this, Gramma?

the story behind gramma Cammp©

I love it when my family gets together. Holidays, birthdays, graduations and other celebrations are loud and welcomed events in our otherwise quiet home. The house is different after they leave; there’s a new energy in the air -- like balloons of their voices everywhere. They leave behind piles of dirty dishes and wrapping paper. Favorite things are moved to new places. I touch all the places they touched and I remember a half-dozen started and never finished conversations. I smile. Always. I am grateful that they come and that they will come again. I make mental notes for the next time I see them -- to ask about unfinished stories and unanswered questions. But, the next time comes and goes -- a chaotic, energy-filled rerun and the list of unfinished stories and unanswered questions gets longer. Some day, we need to finish a sentence together and it needs to happen sooner than later.

I want moments with each grandchild that can only come without the distraction of preparing a hot meal for six or eight or ten and interruptions from a thousand shout-outs of "Mom, where are the… " and "Gramma, do you have any…?” and barking dogs and slamming doors and listening to snippets of three or four different conversations going on around me. I want to be part of those conversations and have time to finish one and maybe get answers to a question or two. I want to know them better. I want kitchen-table talk in the quiet morning before everyone is pulled in other directions. I want an uninterrupted week – the kind of week I used to have every summer with my early-to-bed-early-to-rise Grandma Hartman.

HOW MY OWN GRANDMA DID IT

By 6 a.m., we were on her back porch stoop eating peanut butter toast and drinking coffee (mine a little coffee with lots of milk and sugar). Just the two of us. Our view was her small, city back yard, where I learned the difference between perennial and annual flowers. Her sewing room was a bedroom corner, where I learned first to make doll clothes and later my own clothes with McCall’s and Butterick’s tissue-paper patterns. I learned the importance of a basted stitch and finished seams and that economics, not choice, dictates your wardrobe. Grandma bought bolts of flannel fabric to make our school “outfits” – gathered skirts, pleated skirts, A-line skirts. Although chronologically separated by a couple of calendar years, my sisters and I dressed like triplets until early adolescence. During those summer weeks at her house, our day was almost over by 8 p.m. I climbed into Grandma’s big bed with her, munched on cheese popcorn and washed it down with soda. I fell asleep with my Nancy Drew book and my Grandma next to me; Grandma fell asleep with her 25-cent True Romance and True Confessions magazines and her grandchild next to her.

I BET MY GRANDMA LEARNED A LOT

I bet she learned during that uninterrupted week that I loved the color yellow and spaghetti strapped dresses and that Mrs. Raisch was my favorite teacher and Mr. Leonard my least favorite and that I knew a dozen horse breeds on sight and tried to sketch them all. I bet she loved that I listened for the clues that Grandpa Bob was waking and the help I gave her getting his breakfast tray ready with strawberry pop and hot coffee. I bet she loved getting to know me better. Those uninterrupted weeks with my Grandma stitched a special CONNECTION between us and provided an only-us CONTINUITY that bridged one summer to the next. Those weeks grew our LOVE for each other and made MEMORIES that 60 plus years later inspire action!

So, I created an uninterrupted week of my own.

SO, I HAD AN ULTERIOR MOTIVE . . . AND I MADE IT SO!

My goal was to create with my grand girls what my Grandma created for me -- special CONNECTIONs between us, CONTINUITY that bridges one summer to the next, and MEMORIES that grow our LOVE for each other.

At Gramma Cammp©, my grand girls and I finish telling our stories to each other, we answer each other's questions, we complete our sentences -- eventually. We have the time we need to know each other, love each other and we have the kind of fun that only Grammas can have with their grand kids.

To start, go get your Dreaming WHY Pages.